: Wait, do you have somebody that can bleep stuff out? Like, do you have a bleeper? We do have a bleeper, but- Like if I say, Did that go beep? Did the beep go through? It depends on how many we do. Oh, okay. So how many beeps do I get then for this? We leave that to dirt. Dirt's not with us today. Well, I hope they put the beep in there. Well, we've actually used those words before. If you use the F-bomb, I'm very confident we're going to bleep that. Like that? Like that. Yeah, that'll get bleeped out. That for sure will. Welcome to the Aggressive Life. Oh, today is gonna be a fun, fun day. Yes, it is. It is a first. You're probably the first person who talked too early and I didn't shout you down. You know, this is supposed to- Shout me down, what does that mean? Well, this means like, you're not supposed to talk right now. I'm supposed to talk, but- I can break- You can't break the rules. Because I'm not on payroll. You're not on payroll. Not only are you not on payroll, other than a woman by the name of Libby Tome and another woman by the name of Lena Schuler have been on here, I love you more than anybody else I've ever had on here. Mom and Lena have been on here? Yeah. How did you know that? How long ago? Mom was on for Valentine's Day. which was not a good scene. She's talked about all my sexual dysfunctions. That was not good. Glad I don't listen to podcasts then. Uh-huh. Ow. And then Lena was on years and years ago. I think we talked about how I spanked or something like that. You know, fun stuff. Anyway, yes, we haven't figured out. Did those podcasts go all the way through and no editing? Like this one, I'm expecting some of us probably to be redacted. It depends how unhinged I become. We edit very little, unless you suck. If you suck, then we've got to go. So yeah, we're going to be editing a lot. Like this whole part? No, no, I actually like it. Well, yeah, we were doing it. Everybody, we're at Aggressive Life. Welcome to Aggressive Life. Yeah, we decided to do a different one here. I've been trying to get on my son to get in the podcast. He finally generously said, yeah, but let's just do it in the garage, just hanging out. And I was like, what would be better? than being in a garage, my garage. So that's what we're doing. And we're starting off a new thing for next five weeks. We've got a new release coming out of my book called Five Marks of a Man. We're kind of doing a five week series on it. And Jake was really the inspiration behind that book. And so that's why I'm excited for him to be here, be in the garage with it. But we're talking, if we talk about it, we talk about it. If not, we're just going to talk about whatever. Vision. We've got in here a garage. It's full of visions. I've got my 1978 CJ-7 right here, frame up restoration. I'm trying to restore it back to look like the Jeep I had when I was in college when I couldn't afford the gas, or I couldn't afford anything. I sold it. And I bought the exact same year Jeep, same engine. And not the same Jeep, but the same type. And so I've been frame up restoration. It's kind of a vision I have, because that's what men do. They have visions and you haven't heard this thing run yet either. Have you? Just the videos that you've sent out. Are you got a tank on there? Yeah, I got the tank back there. And I finally put it in and put gas in it. And so, well, as you can see coming in here, I've got body parts all over the place. So this is a big day. I'm going to start working the body now. Sweet. Which is, yeah. How old were you when you bought that first Jeep? It was in 1978. What year would this have been? It was 1978. And it would have been the model of 78. Right. It would have been 1981. So it was kind of like a newer Jeep then it was it was had you pay for that. I was there's two people I'll start crying if I talk about them. Jim and Sally Rogers. I really will. They basically fed me through college in a long way. And I built into their sons had two sons. And so I was building into them. And I needed a vehicle and they had this Jeep. And I said, hey, how about working a deal for me? And so they sold it to me. Well, my dad bought it. And it was $4,200 when I bought that. Sweet. $4,200. And here's the awful thing. I dig it. There were such crappy vehicles it was already rusting up at. Right. Yeah, I'm sure. Because they- All stamped steel. They didn't paint the inner parts, rust got behind all the hinges, rust got in what's called the A pillar. So it was already rotting out. But it was- It was sweet. I had a guy, you know Scott Hudson? Yeah, of course. OK, so Scott said, oh, that Jeep, I had a 78. I had a 78. CJ said it was a 304. And he said, I got eight miles a gallon. I said, oh, thanks for reminding me. Eight miles a gallon, the tank probably. You don't care about that, let's be honest. I'm the guy driving around a power wagon over here. That is true. Six and a half liter V8. That is true. 3 quarter ton. 6.4 liter, I think. Yeah, around that. That sucks to be me. I know. I do seriously. We told you this as kids. Every time we still fill up our gas tank, we will see if you can complete that. What happens every time we fill up our gas tank? I don't know. You're not my son. You don't even listen to me. You don't even know me. Every time we fill up our gas tank. I'm thankful because I remember the days. When you couldn't fill up your whole gas tank. A dollar at a time. And you put a dollar into a vehicle that gets eight miles a gallon. You're not going very far. I remember growing up and not having any money. And you and mom talking about stories about buying the tiny little Jif peanut butter jars, because you couldn't afford the double pack. Yeah. And then. You know, once things started taking off, being able to buy two peanut butter jars at a time was like a luxury. It was. Yeah. We could buy two 20 ounce peanut butter jars. Oh my goodness. This is a god good. Glory, hallelujah. No, it is really crazy how I was telling somebody this the other day. I've never been poor. You know, grandma, grandpa, upper middle class. But you also know they're not, they throw nickels around like they're manhole covers. You know? I haven't heard that phrase before. Yeah, they're, so I just, I've never really had any disposable income really until, as you know, recently. And the thought of having a vehicle that I could restore. and not need it to drive around a joy vehicle is crazy. Yeah. You want a beer? Yeah. What are we doing? We've waited too long here. We're fine with it. All right, here's what we got. Oh, Iron City. Straight up. Show me a truth. How about Iron City? We don't have much time on here. Give me a truth. All right. All right, I'm going to have Iron City. I'm going to have Iron City. Has anybody ever cracked a beer on the mic in this podcast? Me, I think. It's just like, let's do one at a time or at the same time. On three. One, two, three. Have you ever had this beer? Iron shitty, I mean, iron city. Yeah. Have I not told you the story behind iron city beer? No. Everyone in Pittsburgh when I was growing up drank this beer because it was the cheapest beer, and everyone called it iron shitty. Yeah. Because it wasn't any good. So I'm out of Pittsburgh for about 10 years. And I go back to Pittsburgh, and I'm seeing somebody. I'm like, why not? Let's have an iron. Let's pump an iron. Pump an iron, is what we said. Took this beer, I was like, oh my goodness, this is good freaking beer. It is good. So Rob Seddon, a buddy of mine, as you know, was in Pittsburgh the other day and he picked me up a case. So I've been savoring it. Remember the thing Steve told us about lagers? No. Now he was involved with the brewery down there in an OTR and he talked about how people think IPAs are hard to brew and that's not the case. The hardest beer to brew is a lager. Because lagers are so light and Pilsner's are so light, that type of beer is so light, any type of imperfection will just... throw it off a whack, which like, if you ever have like a micro brew lager, a lot of times it's pretty bad. It's pretty skunky, whereas like, you know, a core is like, ah. Well, we said to the guy, he was interviewing this brewmaster, bringing to his brewery one of his many, many businesses that Steve has. And he said, all right, so tell me, like, what's a really good beer for you? And the guy goes, what kind of beer? He said, I don't know, like, your best lager. Yeah, he said, if I just want to sit down for a while and just. just have a couple of beers, just like, what's your go-to drinking beer? I said, well, for lager, Coors is what he said. He was saying lager. We called him lager. What? No, you can't say Coors. You got to say something brooding, aspen off the sweat of Bigfoot's testicles that ferments. You can't just say that. And he said, no, seriously, it's a hard beer to do, that lager. And they nail it. Right. And why every microbrewer does the IPA is because they're easy to brew. Cause anybody can brew one. Cause there's that hoppy flavor will mask any imperfection you have in your brew. I guess there's at least so I've been told. Well, and I guess now there's no internet and everything on the internet is true. Well, yeah, now you're on the internet. That's true. Exactly. And everyone knows there's never anything wrong. So in the aggressive life, everything is safe and always true all the time. So you say, so I say, anybody ever spit on your podcast? I guess, uh, like, like what? I can't believe you would spit on my floor. I just didn't want to spit on these cords. This floor has never been spit on before. This is seriously a skanky, skanky looking garage right now. I've not. What's the garage is being used? It is being used. Well, I'm using a, I'm writing a new book right now. I think I told you about it. It's something, something along the line of, I don't have the title yet, but something along the line of your primal DNA. What's your primal DNA? Like we all have primal DNA. Yeah. And these are identities that everybody has. You don't walk it, we don't walk it, but everybody has. And you see them all the way in the scriptures from when God creates Adam and Eve and the things he tells them to do. And David and Jesus, the whole thing. And one of them is king. We all have a primal DNA of being a king or a queen because we all have a kingdom. Wow, what is your disgusting look on your face? How long have you been working on this book? This is a pretty cool topic. I've never heard you talk about this. Well. How far, how, OK, sorry. No, no, no. Keep going. I'm just, I, this is cool. I'm interested that you're interested in my job. No, no, yeah. That's a cool topic. Continue. Sorry to interrupt. I just didn't know that was in the works. Right, yeah. So it's in the works. And I don't know, I don't know that anyone's going to actually pick it up and publish it. I don't have a, I don't have a publishing deal yet, but I'm writing it and working on it. So there's six of them. And. And have you ever read the Atomic Habit guy, James Clear, I think his name is? One of the things they talk about with habits and disciplines is to pin the discipline to your identity. So like. Hm. You say this a lot, actually. I've got this from you. You say, well, when you and Comet, your wife, you're trying to run across the street and try to get across fast enough until someone hits you, you say what? Be an athlete. Chop, chop, right? And what you're tapping into there is this identity that you have that says, I work out, I run, because I am an athlete. If you just say, I need to lose some weight, I need to start doing something, it's not as effective as pinning it to your identity. Go, no, I am, I'm an athlete. That's what I am. I work out, that's what I do. So it's those similar things if you know these things. And so one of them is, to get back to my messy garage, is everyone is a king or a queen. God tells Adam and Eve, put you on the earth, you're gonna have dominion over it, take care of it, name the animals. They're actually basically acting like kings and queens. And so one of the two things that a king does is a king brings order to his kingdom. That's why I'm bothered by the state of my garage. There's no order in here right now. It's disgusting. It's, and you remember my garage in our old house, that thing was buttoned up. I've, I've just, I got stuff strewn all over the place. And sadly, I have that same gene. What's gene? Just messy garage. I was just in my garage in about an hour ago. doing some wiring on this new bike that I got in there and I'm just like looking around like this place is a pigsty but then I'm also thinking now if you use your stuff your garage is gonna be messy but like do you really want to take 20 minutes before you start a project to just organize everything put everything back and then you start your project and then everything's crap is strewn out all about I mean you need to organize it just enough or you can find stuff yeah thank you gave me that gene cuz my garage is a mess too well we were using your stuff Yeah, right. But, you know, it still bothers us because we're a king that needs order. Need order in our family. Need, ooh, we got rain out there. Are we picking up rain on these mics? Sweet. We have the garage door open. Need a little ventilation. I keep trying to think, like, while I have you, what would people be most interested for you to say about me that they haven't heard about me? What would be people be like, oh, that's the way he was as a dad. Oh, sure. The guy who talks about manhood was actually a weenie boy and did X, Y, Z. You got any things you want to tell on your old man here? Well, yeah, if I'm coming on your podcast, I guess I got to sing your praises for a little bit. Tell you a little story. I think I've I think I've told this before. I don't know if this is this relates to you, but it's not really a story about you. Just a story about you in mentioning, which I think paints in a good light. But I was at we're down in Tennessee for a little family Christmas ordeal. And I left with my cousin to go just hang out with some of the guys that are his age and right this little get together, a little party or whatever you want to call it. and came to find out that one of the other kids there was a pastor's kid too. I don't know how we, I don't know, like a radar went off. I don't know how, I don't know. Oh, you met him out. Right, right, right. Okay, interesting. And just some guy I never met before and we start talking and it finds out that his dad's they're a pastor of a pretty well known church, I guess somewhere down in the Tennessee area. I don't remember who at the moment, but anyways, he goes, he says something on the lines of, he goes, he's like drinking his beer and he looks at me and like, then his brow gets all rough and goes, yeah, you know, it's weird being a pastor's kid. Then you get old enough and you just find out how everything is behind the scenes. And I remember looking at him and I'm like, no man, behind the scenes is what you see in front of the scenes. Like there's no tricks with you. There's no like smoke and mirror kind of a thing. I mean, what, what's on stage, what's on the podcast is, you know, how you operate. And so I think about that story often, how that kid was, you know, bashing his dad about, you know, behind the scenes. And I'm like, I just couldn't, you know, can I say cheers? No, thanks. So there's how about that? That's something that's awesome. That's probably something people don't know or, you know, haven't heard. So there's no games people. This guy's just as bizarre and weird in this garage with no microphones as he is with microphones. The thing I always wanted, you know that, uh, you know, me and your grandfather, he's a really good man. So thankful for him on so many levels. He's blessed me with many, many ways. Um, just, just great, but we never really had a friendship where we were just hanging out and having fun, you know, but not Just haven't done that. Right. My goal is for you to be the first person who was of my DNA who was a male to be able to cultivate a lifelong friend. Check. Got that. Yeah, big time. That's so good. I mean, I would. Buy your son a motorcycle. If you got a 16-year-old kid and you ride bikes. him a bike. Well that's a good tie to the aggressive life. I mean I think that's why we're friends. That's why we've been so close over the years is getting into motorcycles together. Yeah, I think, yeah, no you're right. Well, geez, so interesting you bring this up because the motorcycle was really probably the beginning of that book Five Marks of a Man where I knew that there needs to be a swearing-in ceremony for guys. for young males to become men. Doesn't matter what the swearing in ceremony was. And so I thought, boy, it'd be really great if we went on a bike trip and we declared you a man on that bike trip. That bike trip still has some of the best pavement. We've ever, ever since then, we've just been doing off-road trips. And that pavement, we were hitting twisties. We were going through every national park. I mean. Well, it's all I could do. I was on a Harley and you were on a GS. And so were the other guys, but I was the only guy on a Harley. We had to do it. And I didn't know how to do anything other than pavement anyway. And I realized on that trip that, oh, responsible adult speed. I'm going to go on this trip with dad. We're going to go 55. I'm like, no, we're going 90. We're going 90. We're passing you. Right. Totally. Oh my gosh. The grief I got from people that I was going to put you on a motorcycle. Don't you know it's called a donor cycle? Yeah, but you vetted me. I mean, you took me out to a parking lot first. And I'm going to get familiar with the bike. And then it was mandated, go to the motorcycle safety course. Do that. And remember that first trip? I had to. Instinct kicked in on that, you know, all the emergency braking techniques they have you do to stand up the bike and we were coming around this big sweeping right-hand turn. I don't know. Somewhere in Wyoming. I would imagine we did it. That loop was like 10,000 miles or something. It was crazy. We did glacier. Not 10,000. We did. That wasn't 10,000. It was thousands. We had to do oil changes halfway through. We were doing so many miles and I was coming around this bit. That's like a 30 minute story. Oh. Anyways, coming around this turn and the deer jumps out. And I remember muscle memory kicked in, was able to stand the bike up, and that BMW, the time at the servo brakes and mashed on the brakes, was able to stop, and the guys behind me were like, I don't know if I could have done that or whatever. And I was just, oh, it was muscle memory from that course. So if you're gonna get your motorcycle course, especially if you're gonna get your kid a bike, make sure he does the motorcycle safety course in your state, that's mandatory. And for those of you who don't ride bikes, if you ever hear somebody say, you know, I just had to lay it down. You just say to them, you mean you didn't know proper braking technique. You mean, oh, you mean you wrecked. Yeah. You mean, you mean you jammed on your rear brake when you were leaning over and the bike went out from you. And you stood that bike right up and proper braking technique. Keep straightening it up and jam it on. No, look for traffic, find a lane, you know, the whole deal. Yeah. So it works. Well, we did, we did. We went. to Denver, to the Grand Canyon, which is Arizona, all the way up to Glacier in Montana on the edge, and then back to Denver. That was a long, that was a lot of miles. Thousands of miles. I think we averaged like 500 or something miles a day for like, it's a lot. It's like 10 days. It was a lot. Well, you, yeah. Okay. Did you think of the same story? I thought, which, which one would that be? There's two parts that that's the beginning of the story from changing the oil in the O'Reilly's parking lot. And then what happened after that, that night with, uh, can I mention his name? I remember his name. Yeah, I do too. Derek Hutton. Yep. So Hutton or Houghton. I thought it was Hutton. Okay. Might've been. Derek Hutton, legend mountain man, bow hunter. Like before bow hunting was cool. Before there was any, you know, Instagram or things that this guy was bow hunter. hardcore Montana guy and we ended up staying in his place that night after He saved our ass after he after we almost got in a fight with him Yeah, right because which would not have been good for me or any of us we were we were we had to change the oil in The motorcycle I had a Harley Davidson. I had not changed the oil on before was a new bike and we pull into O'Reilly's Drop the oil and I don't I've changed oil a lot of vehicles never a Harley. We were just not as mechanically No, we were not So I drained the wrong oil out of the bike. You drained like your tranny oil or something like that? Yes. And then I filled it up. And of course, I hadn't taken any oil out of the engine. It was all in there. So I filled it up. I'm such a dumbass. I filled it up and the oil was sitting on top. And I was going, wait a minute. I only put like a half a quart in. I don't know. Maybe you got to like. Maybe you're going to work the oil in. Right. Cycle the motorcycle, pull the oil into the block. Right. It's the starter. I turn it on. Oil goes spewing everywhere. It's like a giant turn all over the place. Turn it off. I'm like, oh gosh. And just then, this guy and his buddy come by and they go, you're going to clean that up? Yeah, we had a fight here. Went in, we cleaned it up. They circled back. They saw we were stressed out. Days getting long. I can't get the bolts off to get the right oil in. And I end up calling this guy. Says he's closed. He can't do anything. I said, well, don't you have some double, triple, overtime rate? He goes. I'll be over in 15 minutes. Yeah. Hawk. Because we were in a pickle. We couldn't figure it out. You had no fluid in your bike. It's like, we're not going to run this thing. And we have how many guys? Are those five guys? And we're all like, yeah, we. Bolts are stripped. That's why I can't get them out. And I have no idea what to do. Again, to your point, that was 13 years ago. We were not mechanically savvy. So today, we figured that out. Back then, not. So we're trying to figure this out. And then this guy comes looping back, Derek, and they start playing nice. I miss that guy. Yeah, you know what? Here's the crazy thing. The aggressive life goes a lot of places. Odds are somebody on the listeners is gonna know that Derek Houghton in Montana used to serve in the military. Trova Blue Silverado. There was? OK. Which you drove. So we go up to his, why don't you just pitch a tent in my yard? We're like, really? OK, so we go up and pitch a tent in his yard. So anyway, that was kind of the night that we had. And other than your episode of Drive, just tell them that episode. You have the drive down to. No, something should be on the side. I think you're right. Bottom line, Derek saved us. Total character. Good guy. Very good. But I was just like a classic bike trip story where it was, you know, something goes wrong and you remember it. Yep. You get to memory. It's a lifelong memory of, you know, mechanical failure and we're down our luck and kindness of strangers helped us out and, you know. Well, one of the- It happens so often too. So, so many times. So many times. How about the time? Bretts went down and broke his shoulder in the sticks of the forest in West Virginia. In the middle of nowhere, some loggers. And they were just, oh, throw your bike in my truck, and we'll take you to the hospital. We'll go, what, an hour out of the way? Just down? Right. Or Judd, water locking in West Virginia. And ended up bending valves and all kinds of deal with his bike. And then we found just some guy at a gas station. Lot of pickup trucks. Loaded and just lied it on its side. Didn't strap it down, just put it on its side. But I guess I get into these things. Gosh, I'm not trying to pump the book that I haven't even written. I want to talk five marks for a man. But one of the other primal identities is a mother or a father. We're all meant to be mothers and fathers, if not. if not of our own DNA kids of somebody, we need to father somebody. So I'm trying to just father from afar our audience and say, hey, mom, dad, motorcycles might not be your thing. That's fine, I'm not telling you to do motorcycles, but I am saying this, think really hard about what things you can do to bond with your kids that'll foster a friendship. It's priceless. That was probably the best decision I made. And I didn't, I never knew anybody who had ever done that either. Right. You know, I don't, I don't know where you and I would be relationally wise if we didn't have all those, all those memories. It's great. Definitely. Yeah. You got to spend money on your kids. Got to pay, pay to play. If your kid, your kids are in, you know, when your kids are six, seven, 12 captive audience, there's, they're going to be with you, but then as they age. They're only going to be around you if they want to be with you. And they're only going to want to be with you. If you're fun, if you, if you're, if you're going to play and, and that's why I said pay to play those things always cost money. Yeah. You can do a board game with them, but there's things that you're going to have to invest in if you want to invest in the relationship because kids want to, kids want to have fun. They want to have a reason why they want to be around you and look forward to it. And, uh, yeah, I'm proud of, I'm proud of that with you. It's been, it's been great. So yeah, you got a son of your own you have right now? I do, little Teddy, Teddy Tome. Are you already thinking about fathering philosophies of what you are or aren't going to do with him? Yeah, I think I've been thinking a lot recently about him. We're on this topic of you've got to spend money on your kids. I think, you know, I think there's something to be said about spoiling your kids in a good way. Uh, growing up, you know, we talked about earlier being in poverty and starting a church and ministry, you know, not making any money. You were talking about, we're talking about the peanut butter things and you couldn't fill up a full tank of gas back in the day. But like we never, like, I don't mean to like rag on you, but you know, growing up there, like we never really had things. Yeah. We didn't have any possessions. We didn't have any toys. And if we did have a toy, then it would be taken from us and donated to the church. And then we'd have to go to kids pub the next day and see other kids playing with our toys, you know, which is great for, you know, teach your kids selflessness, you know, and all that kind of stuff. But later in life, now that, you know, making a salary and, you know, dual income, no kid up until this point, you know, I've kind of fallen into that consumerism of like anything I want now, just buy it. you know, like, oh, long travel suspension. I need that, you know, or some top line rooftop tent. Like, I'm just going to buy it. I just want it. So I think like for me, this is just something, this is random, this isn't like a deep thing, but you know, spoiling your kids in an appropriate way, I think is good. You could say spoil. In an appropriate way. Well, you could say spoil. I mean, obviously, nobody likes a little brat. You don't need to buy them everything they want, but. You, well, you're saying spoil, I think the thing you're Yeah, when I say spoil, I just, yeah. Bless. Bless, right. Bless your kids. Yeah, we didn't, there was a lot of blessings we just could not give you. We just didn't have it, couldn't do it. It's hard to imagine because now, because in prime income earning years, earning us mega church pastors, we make good money. But there wasn't anything mega about you and you growing up, nothing mega at all. And well, it's kind of fun to watch you. I know you're... Probably sowing your wild financial oats that you're able to do things that you couldn't do before and I couldn't do. And it's cool. I mean, you can do it. You can do it. All you guys, all you guys have things that are doing things in your 20s that your mother and I couldn't think about doing until our 40s. Part of that's because you've worked really, really hard and you've gotten in good marketplace niches. And part of it is, you know, ministry just doesn't pay a lot. Yeah. And I think we've just, you've demonstrated hard work from a young age. So outside of appropriately spoiling or blessing your kids, I mean, demonstrating hard work for your kids is huge. I mean, there were times, you know, I remember, I don't know, for 15 years in a row, you wouldn't be coming home until sun. I, I never saw you walk through the front door without the sun being down. You know, it was. eight, nine o'clock almost every night for years and years and years. And that, that hard work, you know, obviously your pastor working weekends, you know, that's huge too for, were you bitter about that? No, no, I wasn't. No, that was great. I mean, I mean, I, I think a lot of it too, cause we were working alongside you doing volunteering every weekend and we all had skin in the game growing up. You know, maybe, I don't know, maybe if you were some corporate dad who was choosing a corporation over the family, that would have been a lot different. You know more scarring. I don't know how ever you want to say that but yeah, but demonstrating hard work for your kids is huge I think that's one of the reasons why you know, like you said your kids have been able to work hard to be where they are today in their 20s and And finally be able to buy themselves thing because you couldn't buy us anything. Well, that sounds awful I mean, I don't mean that no, I'm not pumping up the consumerist you know, mindset at all, but yeah, demonstrating that hard work is, is huge. You were hanging out with kids who had a lot of means, their parents had a lot of means. And so you were constantly reminded that if you're around people who were all the same economic band with you, you don't, you don't think of it that much. But I, the thing that I never wanted is, and I'll just, I'll stop saying, we've talked about this before. We've talked about just about all this will just be too cumbersome. But the thing that, that I never wanted is I never wanted uh, ministry or the church to be the reason why you didn't have faith. You know, if you guys, if you guys weren't gonna, if you guys weren't gonna walk with Christ, that was gonna be between you and God. I was, I was gonna make darn sure it wasn't because the church just hurt our family. The church was just, you weren't gonna be able to blame it on the church. If you're gonna walk dedicated to not having the church be the reason for that. And so knowing that was cool for you, we having another one here? Yeah. So it's all we knew. I mean, since I was three years old, that's all I knew was ministry and seeing you work and then working alongside you as well. Yeah. Cheers. Well, I'm going to Rondgeist Truth here, so I'm going to get in the same place. But do you remember, again, this is just Tips for Parents. It's not a parenting podcast, but do you remember what I would do whenever I got a raise? You would bless us. Yep. Do you remember what the things that you did bless us with? I only remember one. One thing sticks out in my mind, hugely. Well, people, what happened? And then you tell me what it was. So the thought of it was, whenever I got a pay raise, whatever the amount of that first paycheck that was higher than the last paycheck, whatever that amount was, I took that amount and I went and I bought gifts for the kids. And I would come home. Sometimes I would amortize that. I would say, well, maybe the first month, the first month of races, whatever that is. I figured this is now found money for the next whatever it is based on our lifestyle. So I would go out. I would buy something for each one of you. And I'd come in, and I would say, look what's here. Look what's here. And I would say, we have. I would. Crossroads got this for you. Aren't they good to take care of me? And aren't they good to take care of us? Isn't our church good to us? So you would just have seared in your brains, oh, the church has blessed me. Church has given me this stuff. And it's just one of the ways to make sure that you are pro church. Yeah. So what do you remember? I don't remember which one. I don't remember what year it was, but of any gift I've ever received as a kid, it was huge. It was a PlayStation 2. Oh man. Which at the time, you know, it was like 220 bucks, whatever it is, you know, that. And I never in my wildest dreams ever thought I would ever get a PlayStation 2. I think I had like a friend of mine ended up giving me a PlayStation 1 or something that, you know, I played with and everybody had the PlayStation 2s or the Xboxes and all that. And I was just like, well, I, mom and dad can't afford that. I know that's not going to happen. And that was just something that, you know, you, you just accept as a, as a ministry kid, just not having those nice things, always driving the old cars and all that. Yeah. And then you came home with that PlayStation 2 and it wasn't even like, well, it blew my mind. It wasn't. near my birthday, wasn't around Christmas, it was just out of the blue. And I'm glad you brought that up, because I was just thinking about that earlier when I was talking about blessing your kids. Interesting. That PlayStation 2 meant so much to me, so much to me. I mean, I don't know how old I would have been at the time PlayStation 2 came out, but just something as, for you, as financially, I don't want to say inconsequential, because that was a big chunk of change, but that was super impactful to feel you know, part of the family and love in a way where, oh no, you can actually get things that you want, not just things that you need. You know, and that PlayStation 2 was... I don't remember the PlayStation. I don't remember the specific things of the kids. I think about it all the time. Do you really? All the time. Isn't that funny, the things that we do that we forget about but our kids remember. That's really, yeah. I wish someone had, I mean, I wish I had a pep talk from people about that when I was a kid. You know, when I was, when I was a young dad, I've told the story many times, you know, that old lady coming up to me and I was holding you, I think it was holding you as a little baby, young old lady coming up to me and goes, Oh, I'll enjoy it because it goes by so fast. And I thought, I hope so. Cause this sucks. It's just, it's hard work. And you know, all of a sudden you wake out of bed one day and you go, Oh my gosh, that old lady was right. It went by so fast. And I wish I, I wish I would have savored it more than I did. You know, it is amazing how many old ladies out there are so open about how much, how cute your kid is. And they'll tell you, I can never realize that until, you know, walking to your arms, like every old woman just, oh, and I thought like, first of all, like, oh, this is great. This is great. I'm going to get annoyed with this though. No, I don't get annoyed with it. Anybody that tells me my kid's cute or like damn straight is cute. You know? Well, and they don't lie either. No, they're not lying. No, they don't. And I never understood it until I had a kid like, it's so weird. Everybody's like, oh, your kid's so cute. I never cared about anybody. I've seen it with my own eyes. They go up to say, oh, your child's beautiful. He's so cute. If he's not or she's not, which happens, they go, oh, she's so nice. And angelic. Yes. She's so precious. They won't say good looking, cute, beautiful if your kid isn't good looking, cute, beautiful. They will not lie. They'll say something nice because every child is awesome. Everybody likes getting their kid complimented. I know. That is the truth. Yeah. My gosh, if I had to. How old were we when that woman told you that? So let me ask you this. If you could just get in Time Machine right now, and you can go back and spend one week with your three kids in their childhood stage, what ages would you want to spend? For some reason, the age six pops up to me. Age six. When you guys are six, or your kids are six, they're so, they're untainted by the world. Still innocent. Innocent. Mom and dad are like demigods. It's been called the golden years. You can do no wrong. You know, your words mean something. You get to a place and I tell you something like, oh, whatever, dad, you know what you're talking about. Boy, they're in that age where your words are so meaningful and heavy, and I was not as choiceful with my words as I should have been. I just wasn't, you know. Mariah, I still remember my youngest daughter just being totally on edge. She was six. She was, man, well, two of my biggest regrets are probably when you were six. It's probably why I said, six, when Mariah was doing that cartwheel, she was endless cartwheels, and I was just worn out, I had no margin, I was like, would you stop doing the cartwheels? And I could just look at her, she was like, broken. And then Florida, then Key Largo? No, that was, no, that was, uh, that was over on Moyer. Oh. Yeah, that was on Moyer. And then... I do remember mom getting on you about that, though. She was pissed. Oh, you were there? Yeah. Yeah, it was not good. Yes, I was there. And then I lived with you for the first 18 years of my life, if you remember. Yeah, right. And then for you, it was that time I spanked you when you were kissing your grandmother. Oh, when we were praying? Right. I was kissing her hand. So awful. I just was in this phase of I've got to assert. you know, my dominance, I've got to make sure this kid toes the line. And I viewed everything as an affront to listening to what I said. So I said, we're going to pray. I looked over and you were kissing your great-grandmother's, your great-grandmother's hand. And again, I was, you talk about coming in at nine o'clock at night. I just had no margin, no emotional margin. I just couldn't. Yeah, I was a dick in so many ways. And then- Still are. Well, good. Well, you deserve it. You deserve it now. At least now when I am, you have enough of a backbone and muscle mass to actually take it. When you were a little six-year-old, you couldn't, you know, it's just like, oh, just so. All right. This is not the depressing life. Enough depressing stuff. At minimum, it's just good to recognize we all got faults. We all got problems. You live in the past, you live in the future, but I still regret things that are in the past. I do. What if, what would you say to moms and dads who have little boys in their house? What are things that you've learned that you wanna make sure you do or things that you don't do that I did or things you're gonna do with Teddy? Like, do you have any convictions around that? Like what not to do with your kids? What not to do or what to do. I'm not a parenting expert. I don't know. I know you're not, but you got parented by me. So that's just your memories of stuff you appreciate or didn't appreciate where I really dropped the ball. I mean, you've just, you've just scarred me so much. I just have so much baggage. It can make me cry. So what not to do? I told you to appropriately spoil your kids. I think that would be my thing. And what not to do? I don't know. I think the helicopter parenting is ridiculous. Just don't helicopter your parents or don't helicopter your kids. I think you and mom were so appropriately and inappropriately sometimes just disconnected with our social lives. Yeah. Curriculum with school, everything where, you know, there wasn't much presence there. It was, oh, you got homework? Well, I'm not going to tell you to do your homework or you're even going to pass or fail growing up. Um, I think we probably could have used a little bit more helicopter out of you guys. There wasn't, you know, there wasn't much structure. There wasn't much, oh, if you want to watch TV, you got to do your homework first. It was, you know, kind of just let us do our own thing, which. Yeah. You know, as a kid, it's great. But in hindsight, you know, getting some of those, some of those habits formed early on would have been nice. I still procrastinate with that's good with a lot of things which I don't I don't really like but hey, it always works out. Yeah, it wasn't I have a high standard of excellence, but I always end up waiting till the 11th hour to put excellence into what I do. So I mean, that's just such a fine line, though. Yeah, that we don't want to be a helicopter parent. But then you also don't just want to be absent. Well, that was one for us where if we were wrong with it, at least we were strategically wrong. It wasn't like we just were asleep at the wheel. We thought, these guys need to learn how to take control of their life and I'm not going to browbeat them and they're going to have to live with the consequences. The only time I came close to browbeating you, I think, was when you're applying for college. You think you're browbeating me? I do. I don't remember like that at all. Well, you wanted to go to one college, University of Cincinnati, and only one. That's all you're gonna apply for. And I was like, sure, you're not gonna apply to any others, you're just gonna. I applied five minutes before the deadline. And it was the only school I applied to. There were kids in my grades, yeah, great example. People who had helicopter parents and people were like, oh, I got accepted to 50 colleges already. And I'm like, geez. I don't even know, that's college. I don't even know how to spell college. And I applied to one school and it was five, I remember sitting at the library computer because we had school counselors and they came in, I said, have you applied to any colleges yet? I was like, no, I haven't. Well, if you want to go to UC, today is the deadline. So they pulled me out of class and I went to the library and I wrote my essay in 30 minutes. And I got some coaching from Lena who was at UC at the time and everything was, you know, just be enthusiastic about the school, just talk about passion you are. So I just, you know, naturally I think I'm a semi-decent writer and was able to just, you know, barf out a little, a little essay and my, I think I graduated like a 2.3 GPA, which is below the average GPA acceptance of UC. And I remember I submitted it like five minutes before the deadline and I was like, well, I guess that's it. If I don't get accepted, I guess I'm not going to college. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'll just be, you know, go to trade school. I don't know at the time, but everybody was going to college. Yeah. All, you know, everybody that was like, the school was just drilling that into kids. And then I remember. Like a week later, the school counselor comes running down the hallway going, Jake, great news. You got in. I guess I'm going to college. I was riding you harder than that. I was riding you and getting your stuff done. Not hard enough. Cause I only applied to one school and it was five minutes from the deadline. Well, no, I was riding you, but I mean, I can lead a horse to water, but you gotta, you gotta drink, you know, so it all worked out. Gosh, you, you've nailed it, man. Ironically, that kid that I was talking about who got accepted to 50 colleges. And it was like talking about him, it dropped out the first semester. Right. Boozing too hard, smoking too much and just couldn't handle it. Well, there's a lot. So there's your helicopter parent right there. They're straight A kid got accepted to 50 schools, then got to school and like, couldn't handle not having mommy there telling him what the hell to do. Right. And just got lost in the sauce and didn't make it a full semester. I think it was like a couple months and just like, was, couldn't wake up for classes was just. You and I know a few people like that, you know, who just melted down. Yeah. You know, who just, you're right. They were good students because mom and dad said, what, do you have homework tonight? Okay, you got to do this. You didn't. Okay. It's you're, you're kind of, you're very much like me in that you were a late bloomer as far as discipline, education, all that, what you graduated, you see with good, with good grades. Great grades. What was your GPA? My, my core GPA was like a three, nine. which is core GPA is like your business, your classes that actually apply towards your degree, your degree specific classes. I think overall was like a, what's Dean's List? Whatever the Dean's List was, I was like a tenth of a point underneath that. I've never met Dean. I never met Dean. I never had close enough to know. My resume is out there. If you just go to any of those recruiting sites, there's probably a couple people that have my resume. It's got it on there. But yeah, I mean, going from a 2.3 in high school with no oversight. And then getting accepted to one school going in and then I pulled those grades out just cause I think, I think a big thing too is just, I was surrounded with people who are, you know, driven. Right. People who had a standard of excellence. Like the whole thing is surround yourself by the people you want to be like. That was, you know, I got into this fraternity in college that was right next to Lena's sorority. So she knew all the guys there and they kind of took me under her wing and I've, you know, started hanging out with those guys and it turned, you know, everybody's got the frat boy stigma in their mind, but like, no, those guys care about their careers, their grades. And so going from high school with, you know, you don't care about anything, but sneaking cigarettes and trying to impress girls to then you're in a fraternity where you're still having a good time. But then it's like, oh no, these guys are pretty serious about trying to make their mark, trying to do something with their lives. And that was cool being surrounded by people who had that standard of excellence. I think that's where I got it from. And I was like, well, I'm... I don't want to be the loser who has bad grades and get kicked out of the fraternity because I have bad grades. So that puts your ass in gear. They were, they were great. Yeah. You've exceeded me in so many ways. You've exceeded me in income. You've exceeded me in education. You've exceeded me. I hate to even admit this. You've exceeded me barely in physical strength, barely. You've exceeded me in physical strength. You're good in there. We'll get you there. It's awesome, man. You've just freaking crushing life. It's just great. Great. Well, thank you. I remember. It doesn't feel like that sometimes, but you know, I think. How could it not feel that way? What are you talking about? You got to have a healthy cynicism. You know, you always, I don't know. You got to be a self-critic at times. You got to want more. You got to think you can do better. Yes, but that doesn't mean you can't notice reality. And reality is you're nailing life, and you're well beyond where I was at. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29. I mean, you're just well beyond in so, so many ways. It's really great to see. I'll take the compliment. Yeah, man, you deserve it. And Lena definitely deserves a lot of praise for that because she was the typical program director. The type A driven first child. Still too driven. Still too uptight. Somebody created that girl in a lab. I don't know if that lab was our mother's womb, but she was, you get a mad scientist, some bottles. And oh my gosh, that is the truth. She's a machine. She is a machine. Well, LT91. That is what I talk. I talk like that. Everything I say is matter of fact, and to the point, and perfect. And I am driven. Born 91, model LT, Lena Tome. And then whenever she married Nick, she goes, upgrade to LS 16 married 2016 new name acquired Lena Schuller. I hope she's I hope she listens. Oh, she's listening. And she's angry and she's crying right now. Yes. Part laughing part upset that we're making fun of her. But that's the Toam family love language. Oh, gosh, it is. I was just with the with my in-laws in Florida this past weekend and great folk. I really got. Super, super lucky. Jackpot. Absolutely jackpot. With married into this family, they're phenomenal people, but Haley often has to remind me, she goes, your family's not like my family. You can't just crack those jokes and make fun of people all the time. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What's the example? I don't want to give examples, but I don't know. It's just, it's funny because you're right. Our family is very, very crass, you know, make, make fun of each other and you know, I want to say respectfully, but no, it's pretty disrespectful. Well, there's respectful things. Yeah, yeah, but we're pretty hard on each other. And it cracks me up being around my wonderful in-laws. And my wife often has to remind me, just stop. Just stop. They don't think that's funny. But I do. But I'm laughing. Oh. Today's episode is brought to you by AG1. I gave AG1 a try because I was feeling a bit sluggish, not confident I was getting all the nutrients that I felt that I needed. And I thought maybe this is an easy solution. So I drink AG1 in the morning. I love doing the morning. I do it on an empty stomach. It forces me to get 12 ounces of water into my system. I love doing something proactive and aggressive to make me feel better and at least give me peace of mind. AG1 is designed with this kind of ease in mind so you can live healthier and better without having to complicate your routine. Each scoop has 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and whole food sourced ingredients of the highest quality. If you want to take ownership of your health, try AG1. and get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase. So go to drinkag1.com slash aggressive life. That's drinkag1.com slash aggressive life to take control of your health. Check it out. I think maybe part of how you've excelled and why you and all your siblings have excelled is the Tome family motto. Tome's hustle. Yeah. Tome's hustle. Chop chop. Hustle. Started when you were little kids. Freaking losing my mind seeing little kids, how long it takes them to put their shoes on and get out the house. It's like, you don't give your kids, you have to give your kids like six warnings of getting ready. It's one and chop, let's go, let's go, Tom's Hustle. Watching TV, hey, you should mow the lawn. OK. Five seconds later, I told you to mow the lawn. Turn the TV off and mow the lawn. Tom's Hustle, get it done. Hustle, we go, we hustle. And you've got that, you've got ethic. It's getting you ahead in corporate America. It's gotten you ahead in a bunch of things. I think it's an interesting thing to think about of just having a family motto. That isn't necessarily the best family motto, but. What is it that's back to that thing we had, your core identity? It's almost like your family identity. Yeah. What is that? The hustle. All you guys have hustled. And hopefully you've seen your mother and I model that for you. Yeah, definitely. Family mottos are certainly important. The Wells had a good one. Wells never quit. I remember that. I do. I do that. Yeah. And Bean was telling me, he said, but then one of the kids said, well, there was a time that we quit in this. At least they said that. I don't think they ever did. But when your kids push back a little bit, that's very fun. Yeah, that's a great one. Wells don't quit. Great one. We don't quit. Wells don't quit, whatever it is. Well, when we talk about, I got this relaunch of this book coming out, which is, it succeeded I mean, all of our expectations, it's sold out, can't buy one anymore until the new print comes out. Your five marks book. Five marks book. Which is your best book? I think. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, when it was the first one that I read cover to cover. Because did you even start the other ones? Avid, I've read parts of the other ones. I think, what was your first, the first live? Welcome to the Revolution. Free book. I read like half of one of those, but I was younger when that came out. I wasn't really in the reading stage. And I picked up that five marks on an airplane. And that was the first book that I read cover to cover, no stopping, like all the way through. It was good. Was it odd for you to read something? I have to, it actually is damn good. Well, you inspired the whole thing. You know, that's why I liked it. Yes. I mean, your story was in there. Well, it was, you know, I tell the story in that about when you were born and looking down and you, uh, So then whenever that little table, you just sent a stream of urine up in the air, hit me in the shoulder and dribbled down my arm. And I thought, yeah, this guy's going to do exactly to me what I did to my dad. There were excerpts of me in that book, but that book's not about me. No, that's not that book. I did not read it like that at all. No, no. Okay. No, you're right. There were some things in there. Maybe that's why I like it. Cause I thought there's, there's a lot of funny stuff in there, but even I have friends who read that book and they talk about just, you know, I think your writing style and that book in particular comes off as very personal. And there's good comedy in there, there's good teaching in there. It's not a dull book. There's not like a chapter of like, oh, how many pages are left from this chapter? It's like a page turner. It's a self-help page turner, which doesn't happen. You know? Yeah. You don't get page turners with self-help books very often. Look at you, being a complimenter of your old man. I like it. It's good. And I'm just trying to make you some money in that book, because I found out that you didn't make shit on that book. Which is bad. You made that Instagram post about that, and then she cut it out. She did. She did. She did. We have JPS in the garage here who helps me with so much stuff. So it's a story. She's like, oh, we can't. Okay, so this is a story about that book. And so we're riding, I'm looking right now at this badass 2023 KTM 1290 Super Adventure R. Oh, 160 horsepower to the wheel. Oh, it is. Dialable trash control. Oh. ABS at that stage. 1290 cubic inches. That was 1301. It is. 1309. Anyway, so we're both on these same bikes, and we're cruising through the Nevada desert. First time we've ever done a trip by ourselves, and we got the little sender. We'd always talked. We should do a trip just because we end up waiting for a lot of people a lot of times because we're tend to be at the head of the pack. And so this is the chance. Yeah. Before I had a kid come and I was like, well, we got to get a bike trip in while I'm, you know, we'll have a little bit of free time here left. And so we're cruising through the desert on this two track just going way too fast, which is pretty easy on these bikes to be going faster than you should. And we start talking about this book. Was it the five marks book? I think. And we were talking about how it's selling out. I think, yeah, you would start talking about how we're going to call the new edition and I asked him, how many, how many of those have you sold? I was like, wow, that's a lot of books. And I said, we're father and son. I never talk about finance with anybody. I think it's very inappropriate to talk about some of this stuff with people, but father and son. So I just finally asked, so how much did you make on these books? And he told me, and I was like, what? You're only making this much on this book? Who's your publisher? I hope I'm not getting you in trouble right now. But I just don't know anything about publishing, but based off the volume of books you sold and then you found out that we start yelling back and forth, you know, in jest to each other and then you end up crashing into a ditch because we were so fired up talking about this book. Worst wreck I've had in a long time. Yeah, that was a good one. Cracked my helmet. That was a good one. Well, you know what? But hopefully the second edition, you can move a couple more copies here. Yeah. And pay for my shipping next time on our next bike trip. Yeah. With your, because I'm going to, yeah. Yeah, maybe. Well, part of it is publishing is, I mean, if you have a runaway bestseller like, can get on the New York Times bestseller list, that's awesome. And you're probably going to do OK. But for the average person, you're not going to, you're just not going to. make enough money to support whatever. And especially- But you've exceeded your goals, clearly, if you're doing a second edition you've sold out. Yeah, yeah, but I also have a- When you write a book, do you have a certain, you're like, I would consider this a success if I sold this many. Do you have, or do you just release it and whatever happens to happen? Part of the reason why- Because you probably don't wanna have those metrics in mind. Yeah, that's part of my problem. It is a problem with me. Couple things go. First is we decided as a church, that me making significant income off of books would not be healthy for the church, for me to be seen as hawking stuff to the church. Okay. Yeah. You should have mentioned that before I got you all fired up on the trail, then you wouldn't have racked your step. I wasn't so much upset about the board's decision there, but it also is. Oh, the board's, okay, so sorry board. No, no, no. It's not just that, but it is also the margins are slim. That's good, that's good. Yeah, because a lot of that could just dump spirit back into the church, right? That money you're making on those books. Am I talking too much here about not a lot of talk about this stuff? No, we're definitely not going to talk about it. Yeah, it's good. Well, you know, they just decided, and I think it's the right call. I've never sold nearly what like Joel Osteen for a moment, never sold remotely what he's done. Which I heard he doesn't even take a salary from his church. He just makes all of his money off his books. He may not now. He may not now, but that's kind of the thing is that we decided to do that. You've got to also pump your book big, big to the church because that's your base, that's your platform. We just don't want to be up there on the stage selling books. We'll mention it, talk about it. Yeah, he's gotten to a point and others have. And I think it's a respectful thing to get to a place where you say, I'm not going to draw a salary from the church. I'm going to live off my books, which if you're... his level, huge. Well, Rick Warren, another guy, amazing. That dude, amazing. He had like virtually the best selling hardback book in history, purpose driven life. It was on every Christian bookshelf from 1999 to 2000. And New York Times best seller. I mean, number one, it wasn't just a Christian thing. That's the one with the tree on the covers. Yes. Yeah. And he said, He, when he got his stuff from that book, he went back. He made so much money off of it. He went back and he paid back his church for every paycheck they had ever given him. He figured out how much money he's earned. That's great. And his, or whatever he was, 25 years. He went back and he remunerated the church for all of that. That's great. Yeah. And he, at least last time I talked with Rick on that, He loves something like 10% of his income. It's great to hear. It is funny how cynical people get with the mega church pastor earnings and all that stuff. I don't know if I want to scratch that vein in you right now in this forum, but yeah, just like all the hate with people do with Osteen or like any of those big time guys, and then, and then you find out these stories of like, no, they're, they're making money off the books that they worked on. Yeah. On overtime. Yes. They're not taking money out of the plate and just put it in their pockets. They're writing books and working just as hard as any other author out there and selling copies. And then you hear stories like Rick, who's dumping that money back into his church to give the paychecks back. Right. Well, and you hear about these guys who are my, quote unquote, peers who have these awful things. And they are awful and these scandals. But you're hearing about them. because they have a large enough church to hear about them. You don't hear about the guy who's got 100 people and is just a narcissist and is bitter. You don't hear about the guy who's got 300 people and he's got 300 because he won't empower staff. You don't hear about any of those folks. I mean, I hang out with the who's who of Christendom, pastoral, and I'll tell you, those dudes, by and large, are more humble. than the people I've hung out with in small churches. Not always, but I'm just saying as a group, you get to a place like me and the size of Crossroads. I know and you know, you know this darn well. What God's done at Crossroads is way beyond my ability. I know that way, way beyond my ability. So what that does for you is you recognize I'm really not that good. It enables you to be humble because you realize God's doing something there. And this is not my personal discipline, my personal drive, however disciplined or driven I might be, it exceeds that. And I think that humbles you appropriately. Yeah. I think Crossroads has some pretty serious pipe hitters on staff too though. What's a pipe hitter? Pipe hitter, just like your go-to people that are just Oh yeah. Just awesome. Yeah, yeah they are amazing. Swing a pipe for you. break someone's knees if they need to. That's a pie cutter. We got a lot of those. Oh gosh, totally. A lot of those. Totally, well, okay, you're getting me a church talk here. Yeah, sorry. No, no, no. Let's talk more about motorcycles. No, okay, it will, it will, but I think some people might find it interesting. One of the conversations I am so sick of when I get with senior pastors at large, large churches, the big buzzword is succession. Yeah. Big buzzword. Yeah, I'm hearing that buzzword all the time at our company. Are you? Yeah, it's big. I mean, I think that's just an issue. All companies and all organizations and churches, succession is a big deal. It is. Well, especially when you consider the large churches, much as we want to think it's the case, that we brought all these people to faith and people are not going to church, that certainly happened at Crossroads to a large degree. We baptized 2,000 people in the last 12 months. Pretty amazing. And you're also getting a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of people from other churches, a lot. So basically, the body of Christ, the church world, if you will, there was more diversity with a bunch of church that 200, 300, 400 members. Well, now you've got these churches got 10,000, 20,000. Those churches have gone out of business, if you will, and consolidated here. So now, when a church goes down, the stakes are much higher. Just like you're. just like your personal investment portfolio. You don't want all your eggs in one basket, you want diversified. Well, the body of Christ isn't as diversified as it was before. So that makes succession that much more critical, that handoff has to happen well, or else you've left thousands and thousands of people in the lurch. Yeah. We're all on the same team. We are on the same team. And when I say I'm sick of the succession conversation, what I mean by that is I just went off on some. MegaPaths, which I was at an event with not too long ago, and I was like, dudes, is this all we're talking about? Is this all we're talking about? Why is this a problem? You can't find somebody to do what you're doing. Why do you have to hire an outside head hunter to fill your position? Those companies are good, and I know those folks. Really, really good. But the problem is, You're not giving people around you significant leadership. You're not giving people around you significant responsibility. So all those young studs or studettes, they've got to go someplace else because you're not letting them lead. You have to delegate autonomously. Right. And then all of a sudden, you're old. But all the stars, they've left you. They've left you because you haven't paid them well. They've left you because you haven't given them a lot of authority. You've held all of it on. Basically. borrowing the family metaphor, you haven't raised up any sons. Yeah. I mean, you're pretty clear and great, awesome. You're not gonna succeed me, but I'm raising up sons across roads. There's other people who are on my downline that could do that, you know, that wanna step in. And that's awesome. I remember growing up in the church all the time as a kid, people asking, so are you gonna be up there someday? You gonna take over the reins? I remember, I mean, four years old, getting asked that question. And, you know, I was like, oh, well, maybe, you know, growing up. And, you know, obviously I've taken different paths, but does it ever bum you out that I haven't involved myself on church staff to a teaching type capacity or is that too deep of a question for a podcast? I've asked you this before, but. No, no, no. Okay. Short answer is no, you're, you're following God's plan for your life. You're doing a really great job at your life and you and Comet, that's Jake's. Her name is Haley and so Haley's Comet. If you don't know my dad, he's got to have some nickname for everybody he knows. But Comet, that's not an insulting nickname because all of your nicknames tend to be insulting. Yeah, generally they got to hurt a little bit. Anyways, back on track. So, no, I'm great with the path you're on. I'm great where you're going. And if you had wanted to be in that path, That would have been awesome. That would have been great. I would have supported that to the nth degree and been all about it. And I think I was pushing you to do some things, pushed you to speak at man camp that one time, and pushed you to do some various things. So I've been wanting to push you as it relates to you. using the gifts that God's given you, which are very significant and very deep. And I mean, you got a voice that people listen to, you have a natural leadership ability, people do follow you. I want to see that in play. Oh, stop, I'm blushing. But I want to see that in play. But keep going. I want to see that play in the kingdom. But no, I don't have any ill will at all that, you know. Crossroads is a career, it's not on your thing. Do a lot of your other pastor friends, they have sons who are older and do they talk about their sons not taking up, does that bother other guys that are in your position that their kids are not kind of stepping up? No, it's kind of inverse actually. Oh, they want to be involved and they're like, maybe they should. I'm speaking with a very broad brush. The first quote unquote succession. breakout I went to at a conference, it was about 10 years ago. I was like, eh, I could go this. And they had some pastors and their successor up there. And they were all father and son. I raised my hand, I went. So they had all these things. I raised my hand and said, so basically what you're saying is you have to have a son to take over for you. And I think in those guys that- Well, there's been some great ones. There has been. There's been some utterly phenomenal ones. There's been some really phenomenal. But there's also been some ones that have been train wrecks because the sun just wasn't qualified. The sun wasn't prepared. Sometimes they take them and they just stick them in there because they want that life form. Joel, I'm talking about Joel here. I think it's just- interesting for some people to hear some of these stories as kind of an insider that I am not that Joel and I are hyper tight or anything like that, but you know, that was basically his story. His dad was on his deathbed And Joel's really yeah Joel was into The broadcast he had a broadcast career and then he was doing some broadcast research Yeah, and his dad said his dad said you're the guy honey. Did you take over for me? Wow? And that's when it just freaking exploded. It was a church, I think, a pretty good church of 1,000 people, 2,000 people, something like that. And then he just took it. No aspiration, never talk with that. Luckily for our church, if you for some reason become on your deathbed here soon, I think you've got some good people behind you. We do. And those conversations have been had and are going had. We talked about motorcycles. I've talked with folks that. You know, we talk about what happens if so-and-so gets hit by a bus or by a bread truck. I said, look, I don't think I'm gonna get hit by a bus or a bread truck, but I could drive my bike off a cliff. I do some pretty, I do some pretty out there things, you know, really out there things. And we just gotta be prepared if that happens, we've got a plan. So yeah, we've got a plan, but hopefully that's gonna happen for 13 years. I've kind of declared that. I'm going to be in the pocket till I'm 70. At least that's my hope. Yeah, you've been talking about that for a while. I have. That's great. I have. That's good. Well, have you ever felt any pressure from me? No, I don't think so. I mean, I think younger maybe, like, you know, in those prime, you know, prime, but like, those really formative years, you know, 15 through 20, when it would be like, that would be the appropriate time to funnel me in somewhere or. go to seminary or do something like that. I think I did feel some pressure then. But then, I mean, you know. Pressure because something I said or you just felt that pressure? No, just feeling the natural pressure because like I said, since I was four years old, people would be cornering me in the atrium going, are you gonna take over? You're gonna be up there on stage someday? Which, you know. Oh, they would? Oh, yeah, all the time. I didn't know that. All the time, all the time. Oh, that's tough. Yeah, but no, it's not a big deal. It's, you know, dealing, small talk is one of my fortes from, you know, being forced in the situations at such a young age, but I think that 15 to 20 year old thing, I did feel a little bit, but then also I was enjoying what I was doing with my buddies going to school. And strangely, you pumped up, you weren't explicit about me joining ministry. It was more of... in a healthy way, hey, you can go out there and you can actually make money. And, you know, for better or for worse, you know, that there's, there's some bad connotations with that as well, but. You know, going into, going into school, it's like, well, I'm going to school to get a business degree to get me a, you know, job with a company and grow a company and be a part of a sales team somewhere to grow, grow an organization. So I feel like I've always just kind of been on towards that path. And I think. Yeah, you didn't really, I never really felt any pressure from you at all ever to, to come into it. And I think it could have been a train wreck had you pressured me to do that. And then I would have came into the church and not ready for it or not truly desiring that then it could have been one of those bad sticky situations like you've seen. Well, my most gratifying thing is seeing you act out your faith in the normal world. Like we played golf last year. It was really cool to hear you talking to your boss, your boss's boss. We were on the golf course. You had to take a call and he was a believer and you were interacting with them. I was like, that's awesome. Another one was, and I know it had different connotations, but when you got elected in your fraternity to be the chaplain. Oh yeah, that was great. That was awesome. I mean, they said, hey, you're a guy who's got some spiritual roots in your leader. And you weren't doing sermons and stuff like that. But just the fact that your paternity would say chaplain, that was cool. Yeah, it was a position you run for, but also not to give up too many fraternity secrets. But the chaplain is also kind of the funny guy. Oh, he is? Where you have a little role during your ceremony where you do. Oh, OK. You know, you do. You have a little. like a little structured thing that you'd say, fraternity secrets. Can't say it. You've never told me the secret handshake. By alpha. You've never told me the secret handshake. And you'll never know it. I'm your dad, man. I don't know the secret handshake. I won't push it. Anyways. But yeah. I'm not in your little fraternity club, whatever. That's fine. Fine. But yeah, the whole chaplain thing was great. Doing prayer requests and all that. I felt led to do that. They would do prayer requests. Oh, we had like a little prayer box. I would have people drop in prayers and try to pray for them if there was something down. You instigate the prayer box? I don't know if that was a thing before or not, or if it was a tradition. Come freaking on. No. Are you kidding me? Only one guy dropped in a prayer. I don't care. You wanted to do it. You offered it up. You said, I'm going to do this. It was a very low capacity role. Thank you. This podcast, you're talking me up too much in this podcast. I appreciate it. I know you love me. I do love you. I'm very proud of you. It feels good. It's good. It deserves to feel good. You're freaking crushing it. And we've had our differences. We could go into those at some point. We're obviously not lockstep on everything our whole lives. But you are, man, that's just so good, man. That's so good. Enough talk about me. You've had more fun in this podcast than you thought you'd have. I am having a great time. Yeah, you are. I'm having a great time. I've been brow-beating you for how long? Here you are. It's easier than I thought, too. I wasn't really nervous, but I just, I have this new mentality. It's like, if somebody invites me somewhere to do something, I'm just going to do it. You know, not going to think about your, I told you I'll be back in town on Monday. And you know, when you can do Tuesday and I was like, I don't know if I'm going to do push ups like that. But then I was like, no, just do it. That's a good word. Just. I heard somebody speaking recently. Um, have you heard much of Scott Galloway? No. Yeah. I have a, I have a man crush on him, even though we think totally different about a number of things. He was talking about somebody he works with. And he said he was admiring this person because this person said, it's a year of yes, which actually Steve Jobs had proclaimed when he was at Apple and they were initially just rolling in all their cash. He said to Mike Souty, who was a genius at Apple, who had actually emailed with Steve Jobs when he was at Apple years ago, they came out. Apple came out with, it's the year of yes. But they said, we're rolling in so much cash that the most important thing is when someone brings a product to us and they're not happy, just say yes. Give them a new one. Let's build brand loyalty. It was called the year of yes. And so Scott was talking about this person who had a similar thing. And he said, I'm just, and I'm sure they were. They lived in New York City or California, someplace where protocols for COVID were more extreme and lasted longer than they did for other people. And they just said, I'm just so tired of being cooped up. It's just, this is the year of yes. When someone asks me to do something that I haven't done before, I'm just going to say yes. Just going to say yes. Right. I was telling Craig about that. You were? Yeah, when we first got into mountain biking and stuff after COVID, it was like, if anybody, if you invite me to mountain bike, I'm just going to say yes every time, or party, or. a study or something. Yeah, you know, now I'm not as good at that as I was, but yeah, same thing. After COVID you're cooped up and you can't do anything and then make it the year of yes. Who's this guy? Scott Galloway. What's his deal? He was a professor at the university of New universe is I think the university of New York. He's started a bunch of companies. They spun off. He's on various boards. He's got a, uh, some podcasts. He's really, you know, if you want to hear somebody give some really great insights about men. from a non-Christian standpoint, he's not a believer as far as I know. I don't know what he is. Is he an agnostic? If he's a Christian, he definitely doesn't wear it in his sleeve. But since he's worked with so many young males in the college environment, he's got a real heart for him and he really speaks to them. So he's just a really wise and interesting guy. He's a guy I love to have the podcast sometime actually. Very cool. Yeah, he's pretty... He was on that podcast I told you about, Pivot. Is that the leftist podcast? It's Left. Scott would call himself left of center. That's good. And Kara Swisher is very, very left of center. She's way over there. But I listen to it. That's good. You got to hear all viewpoints. You got to hear all opinions. Well, and I like a, it's a cross-cultural experience. Chained to your echo chambers. Yeah, right. Right. I'm hearing things that I'm like, oh, I don't know that I agree with that. But this is interesting how they think. And actually, they have some points. I wish everybody did that. I don't want to get you fired up. I know. You know what I'm going to talk about? I'm going to get you fired up right now. They've had some really insightful discussions about gun control, which I would. Every gun law is an infringement. Well, you think every law, every gun laws an infringement. Every gun laws an infringement. You're doing a half smirk smile. Are you saying? The right to bear arms is the right to bear arms. Are you saying that you would not want people with mental illness to not have guns? I don't like the silence. Come on. The right to bear arms. People who are mentally incompetent and who are again and again doing mass shootings. And we're finding out that there is various psychologists and psychiatrists who saw that and saw this behavior. So if you take SSRIs or you take any type of mental medication, you should be. you should be eliminated from the possibility of purchasing a firearm? No, I don't believe that. Well, I'm not, here's the only hill I'm dying on right now. I'm not dying on the hill of this should be what we should. And you and I are both gun owners. Guests of Life should know that I have guns. I like guns. I use guns. I have a gun safe. You do. You got way more than me. You're way more into it than I am. I don't have many guns. I have like two guns. So, but as a gun owner and I enjoy my guns and I use them, whether it's hunting or target shooting, whatever. I'm saying as a gun owner, yeah, we should look. We should look at people who are schizophrenic, bipolar, suicidal, and yeah. So you want the government to intervene in people's medical records then? I don't know what it takes, but I'm just saying one guy. How slippery of a slip. I don't know how slippery, but I'm just one guy who's saying, we should be having that discussion. We should be having that discussion. That's all I'm saying. We should be having it. But anyway, Scott says, Scott, like I know him. Yeah, Scott. He was talking about as a parent, he's moved to London. And he was saying that as a parent, it's less stressful to him for him to drop off his kids in England than it was when dropping off his kids in America, because he feels they're safer. That pastor down in. in Tennessee, lost his kid at the school shooting. They're just getting stabbed in London instead of shotting. No, they're not getting stabbed, though. I mean, those things aren't happening. People aren't getting stabbed around the world. There's not mass stabbers happening. Yeah, there are. London, London. What's the last mass stabbing incident you ever heard of? That guy in France who was stabbing children out of playground. Really? Yikes. Really? Yeah. Oh boy, no. Interesting. All right. Do we need to turn to? We can turn. All I'm saying is I like being pushed on things that I might disagree with. No, that's good. That's good. Because I think I find myself just naturally as a 30-year-old guy who's plugged into all the algorithms on all the internet, I just get pushed all the stuff that I want to hear. All the stuff. We all do. Yeah, and then any of the dissenting opinions is always the bad stuff to make me flare up and get angry. But like you said, that one podcast, I try to follow sources that are straight thinkers who are on the other side of the political spectrum or on the other side of even like religious stuff too, like staunch atheists and stuff. I think it's good to listen to what they had to say in their thought process because the algorithm is out there, man. It is. The algorithm is there to give you exactly what you want to hear and to tell you exactly what you want to hear to get fired up. I mean, it's... Disconfirming information. Yikes. Right. And none of us like it. I don't like it. I'd rather listen to something that makes me feel good about my opinions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But man, I just don't want to be like everybody who shut off their brains. Right. You got to be open-minded. Not just open-minded to understanding somebody else's thought process that differs from your own. I think the church bubble, which I've been growing up in for, You know, my whole life, you know, it's been good to be exposed to those outside opinions and other worldly things, which honestly, I think strengthens my faith more than anything, being exposed to those opinions that are anti-church or anti-Christ or any of that stuff, because I'm like, geez, you people, you're more religious than I am. Yeah. Right. Atheists are the most religious people I know. Defined as what? Because their belief and their religion is there is no God. Stop. Well, and you have to believe this and you have to believe this and you have to do this with your recycling. You have to do that. You know, yeah, there's rules and restrictions. And if you don't do these things and you're not a good person, is there like a, an opposite of your podcast? This is the aggressive life. Is there, is there a passive life podcast that we can listen to? Yeah, but we're too lazy to listen to it. Well, we've gone down a lot of rabbit holes. Anything else you want to talk about that we haven't talked about? No, I had no idea what we were going to talk about coming here. There was no structure, no notes, no nothing, which is great. There's just conversation. I just had fun talking with you. You're my dad and this is how we talk anywhere and everywhere. Just like we would a happy hour down at the local post, our favorite place to grab wings. Yeah. Great place down on Eastern Avenue. Eastern Avenue and Cincinnati, it's called The Post. I thought it was a local post. Oh, a local post, okay. It's kind of like post office themed kind of a little bit. It just kind of popped up. It's cool. It's been a great conversation. That's very cool. I don't really think I added much. I don't know if there's... You added a lot, dude. You're kidding me. You added a lot. You're kidding me. Well, thank you. Thank you. You not only added a lot of wisdom, but you modeled for a lot of people how you have a friendship with your dad. It is possible. That is possible. And on the aggressive life, I know that this is aggressive move for you. And I just want to call it out and thank you for it. I know that you've never been ashamed of me. You've always been supportive of me. But I've always kept it little. A little bit of distance, so yeah. This was a... Well, a little bit of distance as it relates to my job. Right. Not a distance to me personally as it relates to me. Right, right, right. So this was an aggressive move for you to come on and I just, I love you and respect your death and I just had a great two hours, however long this was, hour and a half, whatever it was. So really, man, I love you. It's great. This was great. Thanks for having me. Maybe we can do it again sometime and have a structured topic. I mean, we could go for hours. We could. I mean, we could talk about motorcycle wheels. We didn't even have like zero motorcycle conversation. We could talk about guns. We could talk about motorcycles. We could talk about the Romanian battlefield pickup RPK kits. I could talk here. So much goodness. So many obscure things. But no, this has been great. Thank you so much for having me on. It's been a pleasure. Hope that. If this gets released, hopefully somebody got something out of it, I don't know. Or maybe not if they got something. At least maybe they got it entertained. Who knows? Well, they're not entertained. This is my normal clothes. I'll say it again. Hey, folks, I hope there's something here you've learned. I hope there's something here you're going to do. That's why it's called The Aggressive Life. We're going to do things. We're not just going to give you a podcast that's interesting conversation. Though I think this is one of the most interesting conversations you might come across. I think it's been pretty cool. But I hope you got something from today. to actually put into practice. Maybe it's going to impact how you treat your little kids. Maybe it's going to impact how you relate with your peers, with your kids who are adults. Maybe it's going to. I don't know what it's going to be, but I hope there's something that's here that you can apply to your life. And if nothing else, then pre-order the new edition of the Five Marks of a Man. Yeah. We'll see you next time on The Aggressive Life. Thanks for joining us on this journey toward aggressive living. Find more resources, articles, past episodes and live events over at bryantome.com. Pre-orders for my new books, a repackaged edition of the Five Marks of a Man and a brand new Five Marks of a Man Tactical Guide are open right now on Amazon. If you haven't yet, leave this podcast a rating and review. It really helps. Get this show in front of new listeners. And if you want to connect, find me on Instagram at Brian Tome. The Aggressive Life is a production of Crossroads Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.